


the death of dreaming

by withoutwords



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pining, Post-The Raven King, Pre-Call Down the Hawk, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:09:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25822660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withoutwords/pseuds/withoutwords
Summary: After his dad died, Ronan wasn’t left with much to believe in. Honestly, Niall Lynch hadn’t left much for his three sons at all. No Dad, or Mom, or home - all in one fell swoop. Just an endless pit of money, like that was ever going to solve anything.Ronan had Matthew, and Gansey, and his dreaming.Then Ronan had Adam.
Relationships: Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 14
Kudos: 137





	the death of dreaming

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little something I really wanted to write, after bingeing TRC again recently. Sort of a ‘5 times Ronan doubts Adam’s feelings, +1 time Dam doubts Ronan's'. Hope you enjoy!

Adam’s fingers are soft and slow where they stutter over Ronan’s tattoo - in lines and swirls and dipping spikes, like an explorer unearthing ancient ruins (Ronan’s ruined). He’s dreamt about this one too many times, in ways he can’t even admit to himself. He’s dreamt about Adam in his bed, and Adam’s hands on him, and Adam admiring and wanting and having.

Ronan’s only ever wanted to be had by Adam. 

“You ever think about Sargent like this?” he mutters where his head rests on his arms, because that’s Ronan, isn’t it? Ticking time bomb, set to self destruct.

Adam’s fingers pull away like a needle off a record. There’s a screeching silence. “What?”

“Sargent. When you were … what the fuck ever. You think about being in bed with her?” 

“Wow, Lynch,” Adam says bitterly, sitting up and letting the sheet pool around his waist. He’s like a goddamn Greek statue, all muscle and sinew and beauty. “Spectacular way to ruin a moment.”

“Jesus, relax, I was just asking,” Ronan groans, biting down on his regret, on the stupidstupidstupid. He rolls onto his back, hands moving up behind his head. “Spectacular way to deflect.”

“Blue’s our friend, I’m not going to sit here and talk about her like that.”

“I wasn’t talking about her, I was talking about  _ you _ .”

“Me,” Adam scoffs, leaning down to scramble on the floor for a shirt. The knots of his spine pop and Ronan wants to reach out and touch them like the keys of a piano. Play him a song he might like. “Right. It’s never got anything to do with you, does it?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It  _ means _ , that I just spent the night with you, just woke up with you, and you ask me how I used to feel about  _ Blue _ .”

“Don’t be such a bitch, I was just - ”

“Then don’t be such a shit bag,” Adam yells, getting his jeans up and wrenching on the button. “I’m going to work. I’ll talk to you later, maybe you’ll think of a better question to ask me.”

“I’ve got one now,” Ronan calls after him, even though he’s completely out of sight. “What’s your fucking problem?”

*   
  


After his dad died, Ronan wasn’t left with much to believe in.

Honestly, Niall Lynch hadn’t left much for his three sons at all. No Dad, or Mom, or home - all in one fell swoop. Just an endless pit of money, like that was ever going to solve anything.

Ronan had Matthew, and Gansey, and his dreaming.

Then Ronan had Adam.

In a different way, of course. The abstract, and the imagining. All those endless dreams. Except it was important, he knew it was, because Adam was the only thing he longed for after his dad died. The only thing that was true, and decent, and nice.

The only thing that didn’t make him so goddamn angry.

“Whatever,” Ronan says to Gansey after half a day of pestering. Trust a politician’s son to know when there’s unrest in his party. “We had a fight.”

Gansey scoffs like there’s a silver spoon in his mouth. Ronan forgets why he loves him. “Well colour me unsurprised, Lynch, don’t you and Adam have a fight every day?”

“It was different,” Ronan says around a mouthful of the leather bands around his wrist. Gansey’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Ah, I see. A boyfriend fight.”

Ronan punches him just as Adam appears, bag slung over his shoulder. His sleeves are rolled to his elbows and his tie is so loose it almost sits like a scarf. Ronan wants to wrap himself around Adam until no one else can see him.

“What did he do to deserve that?” he asks Ronan, while Gansey rubs at his upper arm. Gansey goes to answer him, but Ronan intercepts - they haven’t used that word, and Ronan hasn’t let himself think it, and what if Adam pulls back from him, what if Adam doesn’t want it.

“He was born,” Ronan says, with a shrug of one shoulder. Adam pulls a face like he knows that’s not true, but he’s willing to play along.

“Right. Better punch him three times then.”

Gansey protests, “Hey!” and Ronan swallows down a laugh, and as they head to the Pig Adam’s hand brushes against his. Ronan hooks their pinky fingers together.

Adam lets him.

*

Adam keeps a box under his bed at St. Agnes, filled with all the things Ronan’s dreamt up for him. Mostly accidental things, things that don’t work, or do work but Ronan’s forgotten what to do with. Sometimes specific things, like salve for Adam’s dry hands and the pen that never runs out of ink.

And then there’s the sentimental things. The things he almost doesn’t give Adam because he’s embarrassed with what it says about him. But he always does.

“Really?” Adam says, teasingly, looking at his newest gift. It’s a strip of photos, just the two of them - like they’d gone to a carnival, taken them in a photo booth. Smiling, kissing, holding each other. “We could have taken some real ones.”

“No shit,” Ronan grumbles into Adam’s chest, sprawled along his side on his bed at St. Agnes. Across the room he hears Chainsaws wings bristle, like she’s planning on settling in for a sleep. Ronan likes that. “I went to sleep thinking about this place and how there was nothing on the walls.”

“You couldn’t have dreamt me a Da Vinci?”

Ronan pinches his side, making him curse. “Such gratitude.”

“No,” he says, but he means the opposite. He holds the photos for a little longer, looking at them, running a finger along them. “What are the odds you would actually get into a photo booth with me?”

Ronan grunts. “I wouldn’t bet your life savings on it,” he says, and feels the way Adam tenses, just a little. It curls like anger in the bottom of Ronan’s gut, like a tiny demon waiting to possess him. Adam’s obsession with money, even though he has none. His obsession with pride, even though Ronan would give him whatever money he needed.

Niall Lynch left Ronan with riches, and Robert Parrish left Adam with bruises, and they were both shitty fathers, no matter which way you swung it. At least Niall had loved Ronan. Had never let him doubt it.

Ronan wants Adam to have that, too. 

“Good thing Dream Ronan isn’t such a dick then,” Adam says, putting the photos on his bedside table and running a hand over Ronan’s shaved head, down his neck.

Ronan’s hand responds, flat up over Adam’s chest and catching on his collar bone; before curling, gentle, around his neck. He tips his head up, and Adam brings his face down, and it simmers through Ronan, how innate this has become. 

How easy it is to kiss Adam Parrish, even though it’s the most complicated thing he’s ever done.

Ronan opens his mouth for it and Adam curls his tongue in, warm and sour from his coffee and pressing and pressing and pressing. Ronan pushes himself up and gets Adam on his back and covers him with his whole body, kissing.

“I’ve got work soon,” Adam pants into Ronan’s open mouth, his hands cool and scratching where he gets Ronan’s shirt up under his arms.

Work, always work, Ronan thinks, but doesn’t say, because he doesn’t want a fight. What if I was poor, like you, would you take my money then? What if I dreamt you a cheque, a credit card, a mattress fund - would you take it, would it matter?

“Then shut up and kiss me, Parrish,” is all Ronan says, because that smile is open and honest and it’s all Ronan’s, and it’s worth more than any fortune he’ll ever have.

Adam kisses him.

*

Ronan likes Blue’s house, in a detached sort of way. He likes the idea of it, how it reminds him of the Barns before his dad died. Smaller, sure, but full of people and love - full of magic, and knowing, something more, something other.

It’s just that Ronan’s never felt like he belongs there. Always on the outskirts, the dreamer in someone else’s dream. The snake in the grass. 

“Are you making that tea or flirting with it,” Ronan says to Adam when he’s been in the kitchen too long, been gone from Ronan. He presses his chest to Adam’s back, and runs his hands along his waist - nuzzling into Adam’s neck when Adam tips his head back.

“This isn’t Monmouth tea,” Adam says quietly. “It takes time, and patience.”

“Well I’m all out of that,” Ronan tells him in his good ear, spinning him around to push him against the kitchen bench. Adam’s arms go around his neck, and Ronan claws up Adam’s back, and he’s really not sure how long it is they’re tangled like that, kissing, before Cheng cries,

“Gentleman,” in that pretend shocked voice he likes to put on. “Dial the rating down a notch, please, there are children present.”

Ronan looks over reluctantly to see the three of them - Cheng, Gansey and Blue - all gawking, amused, at the way they’re clinging to each other next to the teapot. Chainsaw looks bored on Blue’s shoulder, even when she punches Henry for suggesting she’s a child.

“I mean, I don’t believe in censorship but I have to agree with Henry on this one,” Gansey says as he goes to the fridge to pull something out. Probably a yogurt for Sargent. “There is a time and a place for everything.”

“Fuck off,” Ronan says, and Adam - blushing - hits him. 

“Who’s having tea,” he says around a cough, turning to go on with what he was doing. There’s a round of yes pleases, except from Ronan, who clucks at Chainsaw to join him as he goes to get some air.

The front door bangs as Blue follows him out.

“Sorry about that,” she says sheepishly, petting Chainsaw’s head.

“For what, Maggot?” he asks with a cutting smile. “Using your own kitchen?”

She shoots him one of those looks. The sort of look that made him think, yeah, I like this chick, even if she did have the attention of the boy he loved. It’s not like it was ever her fault. “For interrupting.”

Ronan shrugs. “Got plenty of time - and places - for that.”

Blue huffs. “I like it, you know. The way you’re so …  _ sure _ . I mean, I know Adam’s not big on public displays of affection but you … you’re not afraid for people to know that you like him so much, that you can’t keep your hands off him.”

Ronan’s not sure if that makes him feel proud or humiliated. Even Sargent can see how desperate he is. Ronan ducks his head to scratch awkwardly behind his ear, a chill running through him that’s nothing to do with the night air.

“He’s just …” Ronan starts to say, and feels dumb - he doesn’t want to go on, but he can’t stop. “He’s just, where I belong, y’know?”

Blue lets out a deep breath. “Yeah, I do.”

“And … and if he belongs somewhere else, then…”

_ Then what’s he doing with me? _

Blue just reaches out to hold his hand.

*

After Niall Lynch died, so did Ronan’s home - The Barns. Ronan worked tirelessly, with physical labor and intangible dreaming, to try and bring it back to its former glory. Then after his Mom, Aurora died, he started to realise what was missing. 

If The Barns was going to be his home again, he had to redream it, remake it. It had to become something else, something new.

Just like Ronan.

“Are you sure that’s safe?” Adam asks, as they watch Ronan’s dream child, Opal, ride on the back of a baby deer.

“What, like she’s never done worse? Relax.”

“Relax,” Adam parrots, mockingly. “Ladies and Gentleman, Father of the Year Award goes to...”

“Ugh, don’t say Father, I’m not Dick Gansey II.”

Ronan doesn’t miss Adam’s cut off grin. “Are you papa? Pater?”

“Kerah!” Opal cries, laughing, as the deer starts to speed up and her furry little legs go flying in the air. Ronan looks over at Adam smugly, pointing in Opal’s direction.

“I’m that.”

“Sure. You’re just trying to duck your parental obligations.”

“Well if I’m a parent what are you, dickbag?” Ronan says, wrapping an arm tightly around Adam’s neck and pulling him in to rub knuckles on his head. Adam’s pushing at him but there’s laughter. “Stepmom?”

“I’m not sure we need to misgender people for the sake of a family unit,” Adam argues, getting free of Ronan’s grip, pink-cheeked and dishevelled. He’s beautiful.

“Yes, because with a dreamer, a magician, a hooved child and a crow, we’re really going for heteronormative ideals aren’t we?”

Adam raises an eyebrow. “Big word.”

“Suck my dick.”

“Later.”

“Are you, though?” Ronan asks, not ready to let go of the conversation, the thought, the moment. Adam’s only two feet from him, only a sweet suggestion from going inside, only an hour, a day, a week, from making Ronan fall completely, hopelessly, irrevocably in love with him.

If he hasn’t already.

“What?”

“Part of this clusterfuck of a family.”

A look flashes across Adam’s face. Surprise, maybe. Disbelief.

He steps closer, and he’s only a breath away.

“Of course I am, Ronan. If you want me.”

Ronan wanted Adam before he even knew Adam existed.

“Family,” he whispers into Adam’s good ear, pressing a kiss to it.

Home.

*

Adam’s naked in Ronan’s bedroom at Monmouth, the sheets twisted around him providing a little modesty (he doesn’t need it). Ronan presses his fingers to freckles and scars, presses his mouth to the sensitive spots that make Adam gasp. He presses and strums and plays and it’s a sweet song.

It’s nothing like Ronan at all.

It’s the best of him.

“You remember when you asked me about Blue?” Adam asks when Ronan is curled against his side, a leg around his waist. Ronan’s fingers pitter-patter down over his hair, his ears, his jaw, his throat. He smirks. 

“Way to ruin a moment.”

Adam punches him, then grips him tight. “I guess I knew what you meant. About … about liking girls. And Blue wasn’t the first girl I had a crush on.”

“I figured.”

“And you weren’t the first guy I had a crush on, either.”

Ronan feels his eyebrows shoot up, against his will. “Was it Gansey?”

“Fuck off.”

“Oh come on, we’ve all had a crush on The Raven King, don’t be a bitch about it now.”

“Who’s being a bitch?”

Ronan just laughs, grabbing for Adam, tangling limbs around him and pulling him close. He feels Adam’s mouth move against his throat, his bottom lip drag against the rough skin there, unshaved.

He wonders if Adam can feel his pulse, getting faster.

“You used to scare the shit out of me,” Adam confesses in almost a whisper. “Sometimes you still do.”

“I know.”

“I - I know you care about me,” Adam says, and Ronan wants to stop him right there and pull apart that whole sentence because caring is for friends, relatives, others, caring is not what this is. It’s not hot and fierce and desperate and unrelenting. It’s not the roaring echo of what Cabewater used to be, and every nerve in his body on fire.

That’s not what this is.

“I know you want this as much as I do,” Adam goes on. “I just get scared that I won’t be enough to sustain you. School, and graduation, and Harvard. A neat little future. It’s not enough.”

“Adam,” Ronan says, and it comes out gravelly like a missed gear, it grinds. “Don’t. No.”

Ronan stopped thinking about the future a long time ago. It’s a limbo, maybe, a purgatory - moving forward from the past and rejecting whatever lingered ahead. Gansey’s quest for Glendower was his only positioning point, and when that was over Adam became the compass. Opal, The Barns.

Only these days he had more hope, for tomorrow and the day after that.

“I’m leaving one day,” Adam tells him, and his voice sounds on the edge of emotions Ronan can’t bear. “I don’t know if I want to come back.”

“I know,” Ronan says again, because he does, he knows Adam better than Adam thinks he does. He knows Adam like a dream. Except that Ronan’s dreams were never so lovely.

He’d never deserved Adam. Until he did.

“You don’t have to wait for me,” Adam finally says, and Ronan laughs, and presses a kiss to his eye, his salty cheek. Prays at his mouth.

“Parrish. What do you think I was doing my whole life?”

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr.](http://thefancyspin.tumblr.com)


End file.
